Tens of millions of Americans will no doubt be delighted to find out that they are wealthy. Okay, at least the Washington Post considers themselves wealthy. The Washington Post told readers that members of Congress are looking to cut benefits for "wealthy Americans." While it doesn't provide an exact cutoff for this definition, in order to save more money than it would cost to implement this cut, it would be necessary to get quite far down the income distribution, certainly in the neighborhood of $60,000 a year. The definition of "wealthy" that the Post uses in the context of Social Security is striking, since it went to great lengths to tell readers that people earning $500,000 a year were not wealthy in the context of President Obama tax increases. Such inconsistencies pervade the arguments of those wanting to cut Social Security benefits. For example, Peter Peterson, who has devoted much of the last two decades to cutting Social Security, has personally pocketed tens of millions of dollars through the fund managers' tax subsidy. Those who care about logic would note that the lost of more than $10 trillion dollars of wealth in the housing crash and stock market plunge would be an argument against cutting Social Security benefits for retirees and near retirees. Remarkably, this enormous loss of wealth is not mentioned once in the Post article.
--Dean Baker
